Death Undone
by Valerie J
Summary: Just a little post BoA story I'm playing with. Remy has returned to the XMen, but how much has his time as Death changed him?
1. Chapter 1

It took four of them to bring a bound and collared Death into the underground complex beneath the mansion. The creature that had once been Gambit fought them with unrestrained fury, biting and kicking at anything within its reach. Had it been less tragic, Jean thought as she trailed after the bizarre procession, she probably would have found it funny. Remy had always been agile as a cat, and every few minutes the quartet of X-Men had to stop to readjust their grips as the ebon-skinned mutant twisted himself into one impossible position after another in his attempts to break free. Only the brute strength of Rogue and Juggernaut, combined with the wily paranoia of Logan and Bishop, kept him contained.

Finally, they reached the Danger Room. The door slid aside, revealing an empty metal chamber with a single massive bolt near the center of the room and a set of attached chains. Rogue and Juggernaut hauled Death over to the waiting chains and shoved him down on his stomach while Bishop and Logan secured the manacles.

"Don't let him up," Logan growled as he fastened the last of the heavy padlocks. "I don't know why the Prof thinks these things're gonna hold him for more than ten seconds." He let the lock fall to the floor with a metallic crash.

"Don't worry, sugar." Rogue had one knee planted in the middle of Death's back to keep him down. They'd managed to pin one of his arms beneath him, and Rogue had her hand wrapped around the other wrist, pressing it to the ground. Death clawed at the floor, heedless of the trails of blood left by his torn nails. "Ah got no intention of lettin' this thing get away." She knotted her other hand in the long white hair, cruelly tight, and leaned down. "Ya hear me, ya slimy traitor?"

Death spit in her face.

"Stop it, Rogue." Jean warned before the other woman could do more than twitch. The outraged expression on Rogue's face disappeared, replaced by something hard and cold. But she didn't react except to wipe her face on the shoulder of her uniform.

The Danger Room door opened to admit Professor Xavier and Hank McCoy. Hank bounded across the room, his lab coat flapping. He carried a pneumatic syringe in one hand, filled with the cure, they hoped, for the darkness inside this creature that had once been a friend. Xavier followed at a more sedate pace. His hoverchair came to a stop next to Jean, but she didn't have the heart to meet his gaze.

"Once the antidote begins to take effect, you won't have to worry about him picking the locks," the Professor told Logan. He sounded tired, strained, and Jean instinctively laid a hand on his shoulder. Her stomach kept up the nauseating dance it had been doing ever since they'd captured Remy.

Hank knelt next to Death and injected the contents of the syringe into his neck at the base of the skull. Death went immediately still. His eyes sagged shut, and for nearly a minute he simply lay there. The only sound in the room was his labored breathing. Only tattered shreds remained of the shirt he'd been wearing when they captured him, and it struck Jean how thin he'd become. Remy had always been the long, lean type, but now the unnatural black skin sagged over his clearly-visible ribs, and she could count his vertebrae from where she stood.

At a nod from the Professor, the X-Men released their hold and moved back. Rogue was the last. She backed away without ever taking her eyes off of the prone form. Jean watched her in concern. The other woman's eyes were shadowed and haunted, and she wondered what kind of torment it must be for Rogue to see what her lover had become.

Death screamed, shattering the silence. This was no scream of fury, but one of pain. He rolled onto his side, back arching in a rictus of agony. His arms and legs moved in random jerks, searching for some kind of purchase but finding none.

Bishop took a step forward but the Professor held up a hand, restraining him. "There's nothing we can do but let it run its course."

"In that case, I'm outta here." Juggernaut didn't look at any of them as he turned and walked away, his quick strides making the ground quiver.

"Coward," Logan growled, but the Professor shook his head.

"It's all right, Logan. You should all go. I can stay with Remy." He looked down at the prone form, now curled in a fetal ball, with an expression of sympathy. Suddenly, Death gagged, vomiting a thick black liquid that splashed across the Danger Room floor with a violent hiss of acid meeting metal. Acrid smoke rose in sickly wisps, and the smell was like nothing Jean had ever encountered. Her stomach heaved in protest. She swallowed hard, holding her breath until she was certain she had her body under control.

Rogue turned a sickly shade of green and clapped a hand to her mouth. She began to back away. "Ah can't watch this." She sent the Professor a single look of desperation before turning and flying out of the room.

Death vomited more of the tar-like fluid and then began to scream again. The fluid bubbled out of his mouth and nose, and began to ooze out of his skin. He thrashed as the liquid ran down him in rivulets, smearing and splattering with every spasm. But, amazingly, Jean began to catch glimpses of pale skin beneath the oily coating.

"It's working," she breathed, and was rewarded by a brief smile from the Professor.

"Yes, it does appear to be." Hank's expression was studiously neutral, but Jean knew him well enough to know how much it bothered him to watch the painful process.

The spasms diminished by degrees and finally disappeared altogether. Filthy and exhausted, Remy lay on his side in a pool of the vile black ichor with only the slow movement of his chest to indicate he was still alive.

"You can undo the chains now, Logan." The Professor said quietly. Logan complied and tossed the acid-etched links away with a grunt. The landed on the metal floor with a deafening clatter, then promptly dissolved into nothing as the Danger Room cancelled their program.

Charles turned to Hank. "Beast, please see that he's cleaned up and bring him to the War Room as soon as possible."

Hank raised an eyebrow, but didn't voice a protest. "Of course, Professor."

Charles nodded and turned away. The hum of his hoverchair faded as he retreated across the room.

"I'll help, Hank," Jean found herself saying before she could consider the words. She instructed the Danger Room to give her a hand-held shower head, a drain and some soap. The area around Remy shimmered then took on the aspect of a tiled floor complete with a large, industrial drain. Immediately the black liquid began to slough away, disappearing through the drain holes into the complex processing equipment beneath them.

Jean picked up the bottle of liquid soap and the shower head that appeared at her feet and went to kneel behind the still form. She turned on the water, holding it away from him until it ran pleasantly warm across her hand, and then began to rinse the black fluid away. The water quickly soaked her pant legs and sleeves, but she didn't care.

Though she knew he was conscious, Remy didn't move as she drizzled soap across his skin and rubbed it into an ugly gray lather before rinsing the suds away. He lay quietly, eyes closed. The white of his hair, brows and eyelashes looked even stranger now, against his pale skin. She didn't try to touch his mind. In truth, she tried not to think of anything as she worked. There was something strangely therapeutic in the task she'd given herself, a kind of peacefulness she hadn't felt in far too long.

Hank helped her remove the rest of his ruined clothing, and sent Logan to find new clothes for him to wear. Bishop simply stood back, weapon held ready, and watched them.

Jean worked the lather through Remy's long hair, then carefully traced the lines of his face with soapy fingers to remove every last trace of black. Even behind his ears. Jean smiled at herself. She moved lower, from neck to shoulders to torso, following the clean lines of muscle and sinew. There was, she decided, a simple joy in finding the human being buried beneath Death's vile miasma. Remy had always had a kind of wild beauty about him, which even Apocalypse had been unable to completely strip away.

She lifted his arm, which he obligingly held up for her as she worked the soap over his skin. The muscles bunched beneath her hands--bicep and triceps, then the corded muscles in his forearm--shifting and flexing in response to her touch. She felt the bones of his wrist, then gently pressed his hand flat between both of hers as she worked the black stain out of his knuckles and from beneath the ragged nails.

She glanced at his face to find him watching her without expression. His eyes were reassuringly red on black--familiar eyes, not Death's eyes.

"What, no risqué comment?" she teased gently as she laid his arm down in its original position and turned her attention to the broad back.

He made a small, indecipherable noise, but when she glanced at his face she found he had closed his eyes again. His face was still, the hard, angular planes giving her no insight. Her good humor dimmed. They had no guarantee that the mind inside the now-familiar face would be anything more than the cold, hateful creature they'd known as Death.

The disheartening thought broke the spell she'd put on herself. Summoning what clinical detachment she could, she finished the task of washing the black ichor away. Logan returned just as she was turning the water off. He had a couple of towels tossed over his shoulder and a pile of clothing in his arms. Jean climbed to her feet, suddenly aware of the wet, disgusting condition of her clothes. Her skin had begun to itch from the diluted acid.

Hank and Logan hauled Remy to his feet, and Logan handed him one of the towels.

"I'm going to go change," Jean told them, feeling suddenly awkward. She turned toward the door, unconsciously wringing her hands, and had taken no more than two steps when Remy's quiet voice stopped her.

"T'ank you, Jean."

Jean glanced back, only to find Remy watching her with a faint, warm smile tickling the corners of his mouth. She grinned back at him, her heart lifting. "You're welcome."

She waited a moment to see if some flirtatious comment would follow, but he remained silent. Only a little disappointed, she turned away.

Remy's voice floated to her just as she opened the door. "Y' were supposed t' say 'any time', chere."

Jean walked out of the room laughing, confident their Remy was indeed back.


	2. Chapter 2

All conversation in the War Room died as the door opened on Bishop and Logan, with Remy supported between them. Though he was gaunt to the point of emaciation, he looked the gathered mutants over with keen awareness in his red-on-black eyes.

Rogue studied him intently from her seat midway around the table. He looked fairly normal, except for the straight white hair. But who knew what was going on inside his head? She certainly didn't, and she wasn't sure she could ever go back to seeing him as the same man who had shared her bed a seeming lifetime ago. The one she'd pledged her heart to, and who had turned his back on them all in favor of Apocalypse. The one who had tried to kill her to sever the last link to his humanity.

Logan and Bishop half-led, half-carried Remy to the open seat next to Professor Xavier. When they released him, Remy slid bonelessly into the seat, folded his arms on the table and laid his head down atop them. Logan and Bishop went to find their own seats.

"Remy, how are you feeling?" Professor Xavier asked after a moment.

"Tired." The answer was muffled but still audible. Then Remy raised his head to flash the Professor a wolfish grin. "Dead tired, in fact."

A nervous twitter ran around the room, a mix of shock and amusement. Across the table from Rogue, Logan groaned and rolled his eyes. "Nice ta see yer sense of humor ain't changed, Gumbo."

Remy didn't look down the table toward Logan. Instead, he unfolded his arms and rested his forehead against his palms. After a moment, he ran his hands through his hair. A thick chunk of the long white strands came loose in his fingers as he did.

He pulled the hairs free and held them in his hand, absently rubbing them between his fingers as he studied them.

"I'm afraid it's probably all going to fall out," the Professor said gently. "Then grow back in the normal color."

"Lovely." Remy didn't look up.

The Professor turned his attention to the room at large. His gaze swept the gathered mutants, and Rogue had the strangest feeling she saw disappointment in the brief look that passed over her. The thought only served to make her angry. She'd soldiered on, leading the X-Men when she wanted nothing more than to curl up in a little ball and cry. She had nothing to be ashamed of.

"In our present circumstances, with so few mutants left," Xavier began, "it has become more important than ever to have good, solid information about our enemies' plans." He glanced at Remy, who appeared to be busy pulling out more long streamers of hair and not paying the least attention.

He went on. "Several months ago, an... opportunity arose to gain some much needed intelligence. Sunfire had already made the decision to go to Apocalypse."

A cold hand snaked its way into Rogue's belly. Intelligence?

The Professor laced his fingers together in front of him. "Gambit volunteered to follow him." The words fell like stones, each one making a distinct thud as it landed. "To find out what he could about Apocalypse's future plans."

A murmur rose around the room. Seated to Rogue's left, Nightcrawler leaned toward her. "Did you know, liebling?"

Rogue shook her head, not trusting herself to talk. In the course of a few words, the Professor had taken the most painful betrayal of her life and rendered it moot. Acceptable. Maybe even noble.

"Now," Xavier said, "I believe it's time to find out what Gambit has learned."

Remy brushed the hair from his fingers and leaned back in his chair. Rogue found she couldn't look at him, so she stared at the tabletop instead, only glancing up occasionally as his familiar voice filled the room.

"I don' have all dat much t' tell about Apocalypse," he began. "Once m' eyeballs don't feel like sandpaper, I can start on drawings-- installation floorplans, specs on the technology I saw, how t' hack his computer system." He made a vague gesture, as if dismissing all of that as not terribly important. "But he ain't up t' anything but his usual megalomania."

Remy pressed his palms flat against the table. Rogue knew his body language well enough to recognize the tell. He didn't want anyone to see him shaking. She sat up straighter, a stirring of alarm deep in her gut.

"De problem is Sinister."

A shiver worked its way up Rogue's spine.

Remy seemed oblivious to the horrified expressions around the room, but Rogue wasn't. The idea of Gambit with Sinister did not sit easy with the X-Men.

Remy's voice held a faint, mocking note. "My inner psychopath had gotten bored wit' Apocalypse, so when Sinister showed up, it jus' seemed... logical... t' see what he had in mind." He took a deep breath, and the underlying sarcasm disappeared. "Sinister ain't happy about M-Day, as y' might imagine. But he's still got his genome library, an' he's workin' on a way t' bring back de mutant population."

Remy's gaze traveled around the table. "He's made a virus."

"Does it work?" Professor Xavier asked.

Remy nodded. "After a fashion. In de test groups, maybe one in fifty developed a stable mutation."

"What happened to the rest?" Rogue found herself asking through a painfully dry throat. She felt like her heart had stopped beating as she waited for an answer. But there weren't going to be any more secrets. Not from him. Not about Sinister.

Remy turned to look at her, his face expressionless, but his eyes full of... disappointment? Rogue wasn't entirely certain how to interpret the flickering emotion hidden in his gaze. He shrugged. "Killin' dem was a mercy, for de most part."

Rogue shuddered at the horrible image his flat statement generated. But worse was the utter lack of regret in his voice.

"You sure don't sound all broken up about it." Rogue didn't even recognize the voice that spoke as her own until Kurt turned to stare at her, aghast. She sagged in her chair and bit the inside of her lip, her cheeks burning. When had she gotten so spiteful?

The Professor cleared his throat, breaking the uneasy silence. "How can we stop Sinister?"

Remy's voice remained flat. "I c'n show you the lab he was usin', but he's most likely gone by now." He scrubbed his face with his hands. "If we're lucky, y' might get a sample of the virus, but Essex tends t' burn his labs behind him."

"Do you know where he might go next?"

Remy shook his head. "Non. He made de mistake o' tellin' me dat once before." To the Professor's curious look, he shrugged and added, "I blew de place sky high before he could strip it-- set him back a couple o' years." The image of a ruined theater in Seattle shimmered to life in Rogue's mind.

"All right." Xavier seemed satisfied with the explanation. "Give us the location, and then you should get some sleep. The X-Men can take it from here."

Remy spieled off an address without hesitation and then levered himself to his feet. He straightened, swaying slightly. Logan and Bishop both stood and moved to Remy's sides.

"And Remy?" The Professor reached out to catch his arm before Remy could turn away. "It's good to have you back with us again."

To Rogue's surprise, a murmur of agreement filled the room. She forced her head to nod, too, the motion as unnatural as a marionette's, and felt Kurt's fingers curl around her own.

"It will be all right, liebling. You will see."

Rogue squeezed his hand, grateful for the comfort. But she was terribly afraid nothing was ever going to be all right again.


	3. Chapter 3

Remy woke to the heavenly smells of frying bacon and fresh-brewed coffee. He threw his legs over the side of the bed and sat up, momentarily startled by the sight of his ordinary, flesh-colored feet. Then the events of the previous day reasserted themselves in his mind and he smiled.

He was human again. No longer Apocalypse's mad horseman or Sinister's pet killer, but plain old Remy LeBeau. He had slept in his own bed at the mansion. And he was hungry.

Still grinning, he got up and padded into the bathroom. His smile died when he caught sight of his reflection in the mirror. Perhaps half of his hair had fallen out during the night, leaving large patches of scalp visible.

"Merde." Cursing under his breath, he rummaged through the vanity drawers for his razor. There was no way he was going anywhere looking like _this_. And it looked like his only choice was to shave it all off. At least his eyebrows hadn't fallen out. _Yet_, he amended glumly.

He showered, managing to nick himself only once during the unfamiliar process of shaving his scalp, then dressed in a pair of well-worn jeans and an old, hooded Giants sweatshirt he found buried in one of his drawers. The hood would at least cover his baldness. He tossed on the pair of Ray Bans lying on the dresser for good measure--his sensitivity to light had come back along with everything else-- and headed toward the kitchen.

When he walked in, he found Jean seated alone at the kitchen table. She looked up at his entrance and immediately burst into laughter.

"What?" he asked defensively.

She covered her mouth with one hand and rose to her feet. "Oh, Remy." She couldn't quite stifle her giggles. "You look like you're getting ready to knock over a 7-11."

Remy found himself grinning ruefully, unable to hold her mirth against her. He probably did look like a two-bit hood. "Yeah, well, I'm havin' a bad hair day." He did pull off his sunglasses and toss them down on the table.

Her snickering continued, but she didn't say anything as she returned to her seat. Remy went to serve himself breakfast and sat down opposite her with his plate piled high. The smell alone had his mouth watering profusely and his stomach cramping in anticipation.

The first bite of scrambled eggs was nothing short of heaven itself. He closed his eyes, overwhelmed. Death had eaten rarely-- blood was the only thing that hadn't tasted putrid and even that hadn't been particularly satisfying.

Remy pushed the memory away and dug into to his breakfast with gusto. After a while, he looked up to find Jean watching him with her chin propped on her hands and amusement still dancing in her eyes.

"Where is everyone, anyway?" he asked, waving his fork at the empty kitchen.

The merry expression in her eyes dimmed. "Most of the X-Men are off looking at that lab you sent them to."

Remy snapped a piece of bacon in half and popped both pieces into his mouth in quick succession. "But not you?"

She glanced down at the table. "A week ago, I was dead." She met his gaze briefly and he was surprised by the wealth of pain that shone from her eyes. "They're still doing the whole psych analysis, et cetera, before they clear me for field duty."

She smiled then, and the shadows in her eyes retreated. "Just like they're going to do to you." She saluted him with her coffee cup before taking a sip.

"Guess we're in de same boat, then." He decided not to ask about her most recent return from the dead. It had happened enough times now that he'd only been a little surprised to see her. He steered his thoughts toward the future. "Who's doing the evaluations?"

"Emma."

Remy stopped eating for a moment to study her. Jean's expression was hard, daring him to pity her. Remy didn't. He'd be willing to put his last few months up against hers any day.

So, "Is she fair?" he asked instead.

Jean cocked her head to the side and pursed her lips. "She's been professional. I'll give her that much."

Remy read the expression in her eyes with ease, but didn't comment. He wasn't one to talk about fidelity. Instead, he went back to work on his breakfast.

Jean sipped her coffee, and the silence eventually grew comfortable once again.

Remy scraped the last bits off his plate and tossed the fork down with a contented sigh. He leaned back in his chair, only to find Jean watching him with a little smirk playing about her lips. He raised an eyebrow in silent question.

The smirk became a full blown smile. "So, are you going to let me see?" She gestured toward his hood. "Please?" She batted her eyelashes at him extravagantly.

Remy hesitated. He'd always been vain about his appearance. He knew that. The physical transformation into Death has stripped his attractiveness away along with everything else, something Death had welcomed, but that made him cringe somewhere deep inside. He wanted to just be himself again, but looking in the mirror this morning had made it obvious that it wasn't going to be quite that easy.

Jean seemed to recognize his uncertainly. Her teasing expression fell away, replaced by something simple and warm. She reached across the table to lay her hand over his. "It's okay if you don't want to. But I doubt you have anything to be too terribly worried about." With a quick squeeze, she released his hand and leaned back in her chair.

Gathering his courage, Remy flipped the hood back. "You so sure about dat?"

He held his breath while Jean looked him over. "Well," she said after a moment, her tone matter-of-fact, "it's not a style I'd recommend you keep."

"Gee t'anks." He pulled the hood back up and crossed his arms, more hurt than he wanted to admit. He looked away from Jean.

"Remy, stop." She reached across the table again, and Remy had to throttle the petty desire to pull back out of her reach. Jean laid both hands on his forearm, her grip light and firm. "Look at me, please."

He did after a moment, to find her smiling, her green eyes full of mischief. "Remy LeBeau, you are quite possibly _the_ most devastatingly gorgeous man I have ever met. No, bald is not your best look. So, you're going to be stuck with being merely handsome for a few weeks until your hair grows back in. Got me?"

Remy nodded, feeling silly but also inordinately pleased at the compliment.

Jean let him go. "Good." She made a show of looking around the kitchen as she smoothly changed the subject. "So, what should we do with ourselves until the X-Men get back?"

Remy stifled a sudden yawn. Now that his stomach was full, he was quickly getting sleepy. "I t'ink maybe a lil' nap poolside might be in order," he said. The crisp spring air was too cool for swimming, but there was something about sprawling in a lounge chair in the sun and listening to the sound of the water lapping against the sides of the pool that he found soothing.

She laughed. "All right. I'll bring my book."


	4. Chapter 4

Author's Note: A few people have mentioned the fact that with Jean alive and Xavier back at the school, this story doesn't bear a lot of resemblance to the current canon. That's true-- partly because I haven't read X-Men for more than four years (so I'm a little behind) and partly because I took the news of the upcoming roster shuffle and made an assumption that things might return to something close to this.

Also, I've taken a few liberties with Emma's character in this chapter-- from what people tell me she's a rotten therapist and I've given her way more credit than she's due. shrugs

Valerie

Remy was in the Danger Room when Rogue walked in, surrounded by a life-sized simulation of Sinister's laboratory. He'd built the simulation for Beast to study-- to hopefully glean a better understanding of the virus through the process Sinister had used to create it. For the last few hours he'd been trying to get a few niggling details correct, things he'd not paid enough attention to while he was there, despite his thief's training.

Remy paused when the Danger Room door opened, and when he saw who it was, he had Cerebro save his most recent changes and shut down the simulation. Sinister's lab dissolved as Rogue crossed the room. She was in uniform, he noted, as usual. He hadn't seen her in civilian clothes but once in the four days since his return to the mansion.

Rogue came to a halt in front of him, her stance betraying acute discomfort. He could see her nibbling on the inside of her lower lip and her eyes were fastened somewhere in the vicinity of his chest.

Unconsciously bracing himself, Remy waited. He honestly had no idea what to say to her. They hadn't been on the best of terms before he left. Now, he had no idea where they were, if anywhere, and just the idea of trying to figure it out exhausted him.

"Um..." Rogue fidgeted nervously. "Ah just wanted ta ask how you're doin'." Her gaze flicked toward his face and then away so fast he had no opportunity to read the expression in her eyes. She stared out into the empty Danger Room as if the metal walls had taken on a sudden, powerful fascination for her. "It seems like I haven't hardly seen ya the past couple a days."

Remy schooled his expression. He hadn't sought her out, was what she meant. "I'm doin' okay," he answered carefully.

He could see the frustration that flashed across her face when he didn't volunteer anything further. She moistened her lips. "Did the Professor tell you we think we have a lead on where Sinister might've gone?" Her voice hardened, taking on the professional veneer she wore whenever they discussed business.

Remy managed to internalize his sigh. She wanted details from him-- about his health, both mental and physical-- but she wasn't going to come out and ask. Just like she wasn't going to ask him about Death's attempt to kill her. And he really didn't feel like offering. "I heard. No luck yet, though, neh?"

She shook her head.

That topic exhausted, they stood in increasingly strained silence in the empty Danger Room. Finally, Rogue made a helpless gesture and turned away. "Ah guess I should go. Let ya get back to what you were doin'."

Remy wrestled with the desire to call out to her as she walked away. He hated how distant they were from each other, and his first instinct was to do or say anything that would erase even a bit of that alienation. But Death's cool detachment lingered in the back of his mind, like a little mocking voice that called him a spineless, desperate fool. And so he said nothing, because Death was right.

#-#-#-#

Emma Frost rose to her feet as Remy let himself into her office. As always, she was dressed entirely in white. Today it was a conservative business suit, though Remy did note that she had left the top three buttons undone on the silk blouse. He wondered absently how Scott felt about her style of dress. Jean had always been the most conservative of the X-women when it came to clothing, and he'd assumed Scott liked it that way. But given the kinds of women that tempted him, maybe not.

"Remy, come in." Emma came around the desk and held out a welcoming hand.

A little surprised, Remy took it. Emma exuded a kind of brittle charm, as if she were trying to put on a non-threatening face.

"Please, sit." She indicated one of the chairs that fronted her angular white desk and gracefully settled herself in the second. She crossed her legs, flicking imaginary lint from her impeccable skirt.

Remy joined her. It felt strange to be back in this office. Worse, it conjured up all the frustration and anger of his and Rogue's failed attempt to work through... whatever it was their relationship had become. But, none of that was particularly Emma's fault, so he tried to push those emotions aside.

Slouching in the plush chair, he summoned a smile. "Bonjour, Emma."

She tipped her head to one side, studying him. "You look like you're feeling better. Dr. McCoy tells me you're reasonably healthy, though about forty pounds underweight. How are your powers behaving?"

Remy shrugged. "Fine. A lil' unsteady at first, but they've smoothed out." He held out his hand, let his power flow out to dance around his fingers in a bright pink glow. He recalled the power after a moment and let his hand fall.

She nodded, seeming satisfied. "Good. How have you been sleeping?"

"Well enough." In fact, he'd been sleeping nearly twelve hours a night as his body recuperated from both his lifestyle as Death and his recent conversion back to normal.

"Nightmares?"

Remy frowned. "Non." He'd had plenty of strange, disjointed dreams, but nothing he would qualify as a nightmare. Which, now that she mentioned it, seemed kind of odd.

She brushed a few stray hairs away from her face. "All right. Well, we both know why you're here, so I'll skip the rest of the small talk since neither of us enjoys it."

Remy smiled at that and inclined his head. "Merci, mademoiselle."

Emma didn't respond. The fingers of one hand tapped a stately rhythm on her knee. Finally, she leaned back in her chair and folded her hands in her lap. "I must say, Remy, you seem to be showing very little sign of trauma from the events of the last few months." She looked Remy directly in the eyes. "It has me worried, frankly. The Professor as well."

Remy met her gaze, refusing to be intimidated. "You t'ink I'm stuffin' all my feelings about bein' Death away in a corner someplace an' just pretending everything's dandy?"

"Are you?"

Remy shrugged. "No." He flashed Emma a deprecating grin. "Don' think so, anyway."

She raised one eyebrow. "That's unusual for you, don't you think?"

Remy forced his tone to remain light. "How so?" She hadn't been kidding about skipping the small talk.

Emma skewered him with a sharp stare. "Lets see... Perhaps because you've spent much of the last four years of your life doing penance for a tragedy that was not even really your fault?"

Remy winced, waiting for the storm of grief and guilt that swamped him whenever someone mentioned the Morlock Massacre. But, to his surprise, all he felt was a dull ache of regret, mixed with sorrow.

Emma's expression lightened. "Interesting." She tapped one finger against her lips, obviously thinking. "That's by far the healthiest emotional response I've ever felt from you in relation to the deaths of the Morlocks."

She stared at him for a long moment, more than long enough for Remy to grow uncomfortable under the scrutiny.

"Did you like being Death?" she asked suddenly.

Remy sucked in his breath. It was a question he hadn't dared ask himself. He leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees, in order to give himself time to think. Had he liked being Death? Cautiously, he allowed the memories to well up in his mind-- arguing with Sunfire in the shadow of a Buddhist temple full of corpses, the crunch of bone breaking as he snapped the neck of some innocent human Apocalypse wanted dead, blood coating his hands, soaking his hair, his clothing, making the footing slick in Sinister's lab as he killed those the geneticist deemed failed experiments, his black-skinned hand closing about Rogue's neck, feeling her frantic pulse beneath his fingers as he closed off her windpipe, and the fear and betrayal in her eyes.

Little chills crept down Remy's spine. He was appalled by much of what he remembered, but it was like seeing a movie in his head, not like being there. The emotions were duller than he expected--lighter. There was no crushing weight of pain and guilt, nothing but a lingering uncertainty as to whether the information he'd gained had been worth the lives it cost.

"No, I didn' _like_ bein' Death," he finally answered.

Emma's voice was very quiet. "But something about it appealed to you. Otherwise we wouldn't have had such a hard time bringing you back."

Remy rubbed his palms together, uncomfortable. When the X-Men had come for him, he'd known it was the extraction Professor Xavier had promised. He'd still fought them. "I guess."

"Why did you resist?"

Remy's hands stilled of their own accord. He'd fought the X-Men with everything in him, but not out of hatred or any real desire to harm them.

He'd fought them out of fear. Fear of becoming human again, of having to feel again.

"Death didn' have any emotions," he finally said. "No pain, no guilt, no anger..." He risked a glance up at Emma to find her watching him with a light of approval in her eyes. "I didn' want to let go of that."

Emma straightened in her seat and smiled at him. "Very good, Remy."

He rolled his eyes at the note of condescension in her voice. "Gonna give me an A for effort, teacher?" He gratefully shoved the memories back into their corner.

Emma smirked at him. "I'm sure there's a teacher's pet joke in there somewhere if I look hard enough." Her expression turned serious once again. "But no. Would you like to hear what I think about what you just told me?"

Affecting unconcern, Remy leaned back in his chair once again, stretching his legs out and crossing them at the ankles. "Oh, do tell."

She favored him with one of her more predatory smiles and made a show of examining her fingernails as she talked. "I think you have a badly overdeveloped sense of moral responsibility, and this little stint as Death was the first time it had even _occurred_ to you that it was possible to live without trying to shoulder an impossible load of guilt and shame for every terrible thing you've ever been party to, or even witnessed."

Remy stared at her in surprise. He could hear the truth in her analysis, had even known some of it already. Unbidden, the memory of stepping out of Apocalypse's machine came back to him. He'd been ready to do anything Apocalypse wanted him to-- to serve him wholeheartedly-- as fitting payment for the sweet relief of having all of his emotional pain stripped away. Becoming Death had freed him from a prison he hadn't even realized he'd been in.

But what did it mean for him now?

Emma stood, pulling Remy out of his thoughts. "Well, I think we should quit here for today." She stepped away from the chairs.

Remy rose more slowly and followed her to the door. "Y' given me plenty to think about, dat's for sure."

"Then I've done my job." She smiled cheerfully at him. "Let's talk again in a couple of days, shall we?"

Remy simply nodded. He had no choice in the matter if he wanted back on the X-Men's active roster. Oddly enough, the idea didn't bother him nearly as much as it would have in the past.

He mulled that thought as he exited Emma's office, wondering just exactly how much of a change Death had wrought on him.


	5. Chapter 5

Remy was in the mansion's rec room, engaged in a friendly poker game with Logan, Elisabeth and Juggernaut when Rogue walked in with a young man Remy didn't recognize. From the body language, Remy knew immediately that the boy had been flirting with her, and it didn't appear Rogue had made much of an effort to shut him down. That didn't surprise Remy. She'd always eaten up that kind of attention, so long as the man in question respected her boundaries.

He watched them cross the room, and wasn't terribly surprised when the boy made a bee-line for the table, with Rogue in tow. Rogue looked distinctly uncomfortable as they came to a stop directly across the table from Remy, but her companion wore a bright smile.

"You must be Gambit." He stuck out his hand. "I've heard a lot about you." There was the faintest note of challenge beneath the friendly demeanor. Out of the corner of his eyes, Remy saw Logan raise an eyebrow at the boy's behavior.

Remy laid his cards down and stood. He accepted the handshake with a smile he didn't entirely feel. "The name's Remy." The boy's grip was weaker than he expected.

"I'm Gus. Codename Pulse." He flashed a cheeky grin.

Remy returned to his seat and picked up his cards. "Nice t' meet you." He wasn't certain if the boy was trying to impress him, or if this was some sort of display for Rogue's benefit. Either way, it was irritating.

He glanced over at Rogue. "You adoptin' another pup, chere?"

Her lips thinned. "Gus is a friend. That all right with you?" Her words were laced with sarcasm.

Remy let the subject drop and turned his attention back to the game. He really didn't care to play the jealous boyfriend again. In his peripheral vision, he saw Rogue tug on Gus's arm, her expression stormy.

"So, Mystique tells me you're a professional thief," Gus said just a bit too loudly.

Conversation at the table died as the gathered X-Men looked toward Remy, waiting for his reaction. Logan and Elisabeth both looked highly amused, and Juggernaut merely seemed annoyed by the continued interruption.

Since it was his turn, Remy went ahead and raised, tossing a couple of chips onto the growing pile in the center of the table before laying his cards down once again. He met Gus's gaze, not bothering to hide his growing aggravation. "Mystique says a lot of things, most of them lies."

The comment drew a snort of laughter from Logan, but he knew Mystique's manipulative ways better than most.

Gus didn't seem the least bit deterred. "Actually, so am I. A professional thief, that is." The irritating smile widened. "I was thinking we ought to sit down and compare notes sometime."

Remy stared, amazed at the boy's cluelessness.

"I don' know what you are, pup," he finally told Gus. "But y' most certainly ain' a professional." His aggravation was beginning to give way to amusement, fueled in part by the sound of Wolverine snickering beside him. Even Elisabeth had wicked humor dancing in her eyes. Rogue, on the other hand, looked mortified.

Gus stiffened defiantly. "I'll have you know I make a very pretty penny from my line of work. I can take in ten thousand dollars on a job, easy."

Remy blinked once, fought to keep his expression still. "Is dat so?" He managed to sound politely interested and was rewarded when Logan began to wheeze from the effort of muffling his laughter. "Is dat commission, or jus' what y' get from de fence?"

Gus's expression faltered a bit as he looked between Logan and Remy. "Commission, of course." The arrogant edge returned to his voice. "Any real job is done on commission." His tone said he thought Remy might not know how professional thieving worked.

"O' course." Remy agreed blandly. He was starting to enjoy himself. "Ten thousand, y' say?" He pretended to mull the number. Rogue shot him a warning look over the boy's shoulder, which he ignored. "I suppose dat's a respectable sum, but y' still an amateur."

Rogue tugged on Gus's arm once again. "Come on, sugar. Let's let the boys get back to their game." She was starting to sound desperate.

Gus ignored her and crossed his arms. "Excuse me? Where do you get off saying that?"

Remy grinned. "Two reasons, mon ami." He ticked them off on his fingers. "One, I've never heard of y'." His grin widened at the boy's outraged expression. "An' two, _you've_ never heard of _me_, which pretty much clinches it."

"All right, that's it." Rogue shoved Gus aside and stepped between him and Remy. "Y'all just cut it out, right now." She glared at Remy.

"Chere, I've been de model o' politeness," Remy protested with a smirk, not feeling the least bit apologetic.

Rogue opened her mouth for a heated response, but Logan beat her to the punch.

"Now, darlin'," He straightened in his seat and wiped a stray tear out of the corner of his eye, evidence of how hard he'd been laughing, albeit silently. "Ya can't hardly fault the Cajun if yer boy there insists on stickin' his foot in his mouth up ta the knee." He favored Gus with a toothy grin.

Gus looked between the three of them, obviously taken aback. "Is someone going to clue me in here?" he finally asked.

Remy glanced at Logan, who shrugged innocently, then up at the boy. "Don' look like it, mon ami."

"Oh, foh cryin' out loud." Rogue grabbed a handful of Gus's shirt and forcibly turned him away from the table. "Git! Before ya embarrass y'self any further."

Gus walked a couple of steps and looked back at her, his expression wounded. "What did I do?"

Rogue gave an exasperated sigh as she joined him. She grabbed his arm, propelling him with her as she strode away. "Oh, nothin', sugar. Ya just got y'self into a pissin' contest with the head o' the New Orleans Thieves Guild, without even knowin' who ya were talking to!"

At the table, all three of Remy's companions dissolved into laughter. Grinning, Remy leaned back in his chair as he watched Rogue's retreating figure. For the first time since he'd returned, he felt a spark of the attraction that had drawn him to her in the first place.

He picked up his cards. Maybe he'd have to see if she was free for lunch tomorrow.


	6. Chapter 6

Later that evening, Remy went looking for Rogue. He found her down by the lake, tossing pebbles into the water. Unfortunately, she wasn't alone. Her faithful puppy, Pulse, sat next to her on the bank, his shoulder brushing hers.

Remy silenced his steps without thought. Their conversation rose and fell in friendly tones against the gentle noise of the lake water lapping against its banks. At one point, Rogue raised her arm to throw and Pulse snatched the pebble out of her fingers, earning him a slap on the shoulder. But what made Remy stop in his tracks was the fact that Rogue had no gloves on, nor did the boy beside her.

It hurt. Remy's breath caught in a hiss of surprise. It _hurt_, in a way he'd nearly forgotten.

The little sound was enough to alert Rogue. She turned, her expression flaring in alarm when she saw him standing there. She snatched her hands back into her lap.

"Remy!" She scrambled to her feet. Pulse rose more slowly beside her, his stance betraying both wariness and a kind of inflated pride, like a child who'd gotten away with some kind of disobedience.

Remy wasn't prepared for the hot wave of anger that crashed over him. After the numbness of the last few months, the full force of his human emotions seared him anew. And terrified him.

Desperately, he struggled to call back Death's comfortable emptiness as a shield against the pain. It wasn't possible, he knew, but he tried anyway.

Rogue gestured toward Pulse, he cheeks flaming. "This isn't what it looks like--"

Remy kept his composure by force of will. As fast as it had come, the heat of the anger seeped out of him, leaving him cold. "I t'ink it's exactly what it looks like, chere." His voice came out flat.

Pulse turned to Rogue, his expression indignant. "Rogue, what are you doing? You don't have to apologize to him."

"It's none a yoh business!" Rogue snapped back, and Pulse recoiled.

Remy was suddenly exhausted by the entire situation. "I'm gon' take a walk 'round de lake." He nodded in the appropriate direction. "Y' welcome t' join me if y' want." Without waiting for a response he turned and walked away, following the water's edge.

"Remy, wait," Rogue said before he'd gone more than a few steps. With a last warning look in the boy's direction, she trotted to catch up with him.

They walked in silence for several minutes. Around them, the wind rustled the trees, and a chorus of birds chirped and twittered in the branches.

"So," Remy finally said. "How's dat work?" He indicated her bare hands.

Rogue followed his gaze, staring at her hands as if she couldn't explain their existence. She ended up stuffing them in her jeans pockets with an uncomfortable shrug. "Gus's power is nullification." She glanced obliquely at him. "Ah swear nothin's happened. Ah just-- Ah just needed a friend these last few months, ya know?"

Remy found himself nodding. "I know." He'd seen nothing in her body language, or Pulse's for that matter, to make him think differently. That wasn't why it hurt.

"Oh." She sounded surprised.

They came to a place where erosion had eaten away a length of the bank, leaving them no place to walk unless they climbed up onto the grass about a foot and a half above the level of the lakeshore. Remy hopped up and turned to offer Rogue his hand.

It was no different than he had done on any number of occasions, a little gallant gesture that invariably made her smile. Except today she didn't have on any gloves, and neither did he.

Rogue looked from his hand to his face, her expression darkening. "Oh, no. Ya do _not_ get ta lay a guilt trip on me because ah can't touch ya."

Remy let his hand fall to his side. He wanted to scream in frustration... or leave. Anything not to have to fall back into this endless circling of accusation and disappointment.

"Y'know, chere, I really don' want to get back on dis ride."

Rogue gave him a suspicious look. "What do ya mean?"

"This." He made a vague gesture, trying to encompass everything that existed between them. "Us."

Her eyes widened. "You're breakin' up with me?" He wasn't sure if the expression in her eyes was fear or outrage.

"Is there anything _left_ to break?" he countered. Feeling too weary to stand, he sat down on the edge of dirt where the ground had washed away and rested his elbows on his knees. He didn't look at Rogue. "All dis time-- ever since we came back t' the X-Men-- you've been sayin' how y' powers are an issue, how y' can't touch people. An' I was willin' to live wit' dat." He picked up a random stone from the ground between his feet and turned it in his fingers. "Dis t'ing with Pulse, though..." He let the stone fall. "Makes it clear y' don' really have an issue wit' touchin' _people_ so much as y' have an issue wit' touchin' _me_."

He risked a glance up at Rogue's face, to find that she'd gone pale. "That's not fair, Remy." She sounded more hurt than angry.

He shrugged. "It ain't fair or unfair if it's true." Remy heard the words as they came out of his mouth and decided immediately that he liked them. He suspected it was a little more of Death's influence. Death had no emotions, so they never factored into his decisions. Only facts.

He looked up at Rogue. "I don't want t' ride dis ride any more," he repeated.

"An' ya think ah do?" She crossed her arms, turned her body away from him. "What do ya want from me? There's nothin' ah can do about mah powers."

"There're about a dozen kinds o' power suppression technology in de world, chere." Yes, he definitely liked Death's fact over feeling philosophy. He sighed and stood. "I know y' powers ain' ever gon' let us have a totally normal life. I can accept dat." He surprised himself by laughing a little. "To be totally honest, I'd be happy wit' a suppression field in de bedroom."

The admission earned him a startled look from Rogue, but then she turned away again, her eyes bright with tears. "It ain't that simple, Remy." She swiped at her eyes, her voice hardening into what Remy recognized as her end-of-the-matter tone. "It really ain't."

Before Death, he might have argued with her, or cajoled, or even pleaded. Now, it just didn't seem worth it.

Without another word, he stepped back up onto the grass and walked away.


	7. Chapter 7

Remy wandered through the woods surrounding the estate until a distant strain of music caught his attention. Jazz, with a heavy dose of blues, the smoky notes seems to wrap the darkening woods in a melancholy spell. It was music from his childhood, and it tugged at the deep currents in his heart. He found it fit his mood perfectly. He turned toward the sound, drifting silently between the trees, as ghostly as the music.

As he approached the mansion, he discovered the music emanated from an open window on the mansion's second floor. Slowly, another sound emerged from beneath the silky jazz notes. Inside the darkened room, someone was sobbing. He knew it wasn't Rogue--she had flown away a few minutes after he he'd left her. But this sound, too, pulled at him. Someone else's world was as broken as his.

Remy left his shoes and socks in the grass next to the house and began to climb. The ridges of brick and mortar gave him plenty of finger- and toe- holds. He scaled the side of the house and pulled himself up onto the open window sill. There he perched, and swung his legs inside the room.

The last of the setting sun's radiance bathed the room in milky shadows and threw his shadow long across the floor. His eyes picked out details by habit: the bed, neatly made and stacked with pillows, two stacks of books on the bedside table, another on the floor, an antique dresser, its top strewn with old greeting cards, knick-knacks, and hair bands. In the far corner, a television perched on a stand with a mess of stereo equipment and CD cases huddled around its feet. And on the opposite side of the room, Jean Grey sat curled up in a single high-backed chair, weeping. She was dressed in a long satin nightgown and clutched a box of tissues to her as if her life depended on it. Bits of wadded up kleenex decorated her lap and the floor around her.

Remy pushed himself off of the window sill and stood. Jean jerked in surprise. Immediately her sounds changed as she tried to compose herself.

"Don' stop cryin' on my account, chere." Remy kept his voice low. Anything more would have been disrespectful of the sadness that soaked the room.

Jean gave a strangled laugh. "Remy, what are you doing here?" She didn't sound angry, just baffled.

In response Remy could only shrug. He wasn't entirely sure himself. So, "I didn' realize y' liked my music so much," he said instead. During his brief stint as team leader, the X-Men had taken some much needed down time in New Orleans, and Jean had expressed an appreciation for the city's musical heritage. He'd bought her a couple of CDs the next Christmas, and not thought much about it since.

"Oh." She snuffled and dabbed at her face with a crumpled kleenex. "Yeah. This is my wallowing music." She began gathering up the spent tissues.

Remy didn't need to ask what she was referring to. It was impossible to miss the stiff awkwardness between her and Scott, and icy looks that flew whenever Emma chanced to be in the room.

"I wouldn' mind doin' a little of dat myself." He was pretty sure that, whatever his relationship with Rogue had been, it was now over. Or as close as made no difference. He took a cautious step into the room. "Do y' mind if I listen wit' you?"

She shook her head, her fiery red hair leeched to the color of dried rose petals by the gathering shadows. "No, help yourself."

There wasn't a second chair, so Remy settled cross-legged on the floor in front of one corner of Jean's chair. He leaned back against the upholstered edge with a soft sigh. Her toes brushed his shoulder.

Jean held out the box in her hand. "Kleenex?" she asked innocently.

He chucked and didn't answer. Jean fell silent as well, save for an occasional sniffle. Remy closed his eyes and let the music surround him in its velvet caress.

"Sometimes I really hate being a telepath." Jean's half-whispered words pulled him back. He opened his eyes to find that full dark had fallen. Jean's voice had grown thick, and he knew, if he turned to look, he would see fresh tears falling. He didn't want to intrude on her privacy, though, so he kept his gaze forward.

"Why's dat?"

She laughed bitterly. "Because everybody in this house throws off psychic energy, no matter how much they shield themselves. I hear _everything_. So when my husband is with that-- that--" Her breath caught in a shuddering sob. "I hear them, and I can't shut it out."

Remy turned in alarm. The devastation in her eyes felt like a punch in the gut. This was Jean, whose warmth and kindness were more a part of the house around them than the bricks and mortar. Jean, who, in the week since his return, had been the only person to touch him in any meaningful way.

He stood and gently removed the tissue box from Jean's grip. "Come here, chere." He held out his hands.

After a moment's hesitation, Jean laid her hands in his and let him pull her to feet. In the darkness, she was little more than a ghost in her nightgown, a lonely apparition haunting this piece of the night. Remy took her to the center of the room and pulled her into his arms. "Dance wit' me."

She stiffened, but just as quickly relaxed against him. With a sigh, she wrapped her arms around his neck and laid her cheek on his shoulder. Remy swayed her softly in time to the music, soothed by her warm, solid presence. Their bare feet made no sound on the carpet.

This, he decided, was the upside of being human again.

"Remy?" she asked after a while, "Will you do me a favor?"

"Anyt'ing," he answered.

"Will you do... whatever it is you do to generate psychic static?"

Remy glanced down at her curiously, but all he could see of her was a tumble of long red hair. "I thought y' didn' like dat little trick?" She'd never shown anything but annoyance at that particular ability.

"I usually don't. It's white noise. It... blinds me." She seemed to wilt, and when she spoke again her voice was broken. "Please."

Remy had never heard Jean beg before, not to anyone for anything. It lit a fierce, protective anger somewhere deep inside him. He pulled up his shields, the strange, elusive structures that made him impossible for a telepath to probe, and cranked them to full force.

Jean winced, but then he could literally feel the tension drain out of her. She leaned into him as if she barely had the strength to stand. Remy gave up the pretense of dancing and just held her.

Jean's voice came to him as if from a long way away. "It's not fair, Remy. He was supposed to love me forever." She sounded like a little girl, lost and forlorn.

Remy stroked her hair, his heart breaking for her. Strangely, he welcomed this pain. It was a treasure to be kept close to his heart, no something to run from.

"I know, cherie." There was nothing else he could say. "I know."


	8. Chapter 8

Remy swung the blade-tipped staff in his hands, clipping his enemy under the chin. Arterial blood sprayed in a red fan. Remy turned his head so that the blood splattered across the side of his face, not in his eyes. The Hand assassin collapsed.

Remy leapt into the air as two more dark clad figures lunged at him. He did a back flip, sweeping the end of the staff below him in a wide arc. He caught one assassin across the top of the head, his blade so sharp it hardly slowed as it cut through bone and brain alike. The second assassin dropped to the floor in time to escape the blade. That didn't bother Remy. It was simply another action in the chain of cause and effect, the perfect and logical byplay of physical forces. Body and staff and mutant powers all working in concert to achieve the objective, without the burden of conscience, self-doubt, or second thoughts.

Remy landed lightly, careful of his footing. Blood coated the floor, making it slippery. Bodies lay scattered in haphazard piles across the floor. He leapt across a faceless corpse whose intestines spilled out of a gaping wound in its stomach, staff spinning. The assassin had regained his feet. His hand shot forward, releasing a pair of shuriken. Remy dodged, trusting his spatial sense to show him the weapons' flight paths, then darted forward. The assassin jumped back, but not fast enough this time. Remy's blade caught him in the chest. He fell backward with a howl.

Remy spun, anticipating the next attacker, but none came. Instead, the Danger Room door slid open to reveal a single silhouette. Remy straightened from his battle stance, and let one end of his staff rest against the ground. It occurred to him that he probably ought to be concerned, perhaps even ashamed, to have been caught running such a scenario, but he didn't really care.

He waited quietly as Emma Frost walked into the room, picking her way through the bodies with consummate precision. Despite her care, blood still coated the toes of her white pumps by the time she reached him, marring their otherwise pristine appearance.

She crossed her arms and regarded him in silence, save for the tapping of one bloodied shoe against the metal floor. Remy met her cool gaze, content to wait. His mind still slid through thoughts of the battle. A tiny change in angle _here_, a bit more speed _there_, to make the kill most efficient.

With impressive speed, Emma raised both hands and clapped them sharply in front of his nose. Remy didn't even blink. It hadn't been a threatening gesture, so didn't require a response. He continued to watch her, waiting.

Emma made a little _hmph_-ing noise in the back of her throat as she lowered her hands. Her ice blue eyes scanned his face, but he didn't sense any kind of telepathic probe from her. After a moment, she cocked her head, a small, dangerous smile appearing on her lips.

Remy barely had time to register the expression before she wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him. He was so startled it didn't occur to him to try to stop her, and as soon as she filled his senses, he didn't want to. His arms folded automatically around her, relishing the warmth of her beneath his hands. He knotted his fingers in her hair as her hips thrust against him and her tongue delved into his mouth, insistent, demanding. It had been far too long since he'd held a woman like this, and his body responded with a roar of desire, like a starving lion suddenly thrown fresh meat. Remy deepened the kiss, needing to taste her, needing to feel--

Death's unnatural calm abruptly shattered, sending him reeling. Emotions crashed over him, wild and painful and far too powerful for him to control. With a guttural cry, Remy shoved Emma away with enough force to stagger her. He pressed the back of his hand to his mouth and bent down, bracing one hand on his knee. His breath came in ragged gasps, and he could still feel the tingling burn every place where Emma had touched him. He scrabbled after the last vestiges of Death's cool distance in his mind, but it slipped away, making him want to wail at the loss.

Shaking, he slowly straightened and tried to gather his composure. Emma watched him from a short distance away, her aloof demeanor unchanged despite her mussed hair and swollen lips. Blood stains covered the front of her blouse and skirt, unearthly bright against the white fabric. Remy looked away from her, taking in the carnage around him with a dawning sense of horror. He was drenched in blood. His clothes clung to his skin they were so wet, and his hands were blackened and sticky with it.

He turned back to Emma. "What… happened?"

She frowned lightly. "For lack of a better term, I'd call it a relapse."

Remy had no response to that. He knew she was right. For a while there, he'd _been_ Death again, sterile and empty and emotionless. The realization shook him. This was just a Danger Room simulation, but it could have been real.

Emma closed the distance between them, her high heels clicking on the metal floor. "How did you feel while you were doing this?" She gestured toward the nearest corpse.

Remy shrugged uncomfortably, but didn't try to evade the question. "Light." He worried his lower lip between his teeth. "Peaceful."

"And when I kissed you?" She arched both eyebrows speculatively.

He shook his head, not trusting himself to answer.

She grinned. "Aroused, perhaps?"

Remy rolled his eyes. "Y' point?" Emma was not a woman he'd ever given any serious thought to sleeping with. It didn't mean he was immune to her, but she struck him as the type to turn sex into a competition, which he didn't find appealing. The fact that she could elicit that much of a response from him left him feeling far less in control of himself than he liked.

If she heard his thoughts, she gave no sign. Instead, she switched topics. "Breaking up with Rogue must have been difficult."

Remy blinked at the abrupt change. "It was long overdue," he finally answered.

"Maybe so, but you poured a lot of time and effort into trying to make the relationship work. Sacrificed a lot of yourself, too."

Her words evoked bitter echoes in his heart. "So?"

Emma regarded him for several long moments. "Remy, I don't think you realize how miserable you've been these past couple of years." She shrugged eloquently. "With a few brief exceptions."

Remy winced at the reference to the months he and Rogue had spent in California, living and loving in the closest thing to a normal life either of them had ever had.

"See? Even the good memories are painful."

Remy gave her a narrow stare. "So? What are y' tryin' t' say? Y' gon' tell me I jus' need t' let it go? Get over it?"

Emma took a deep breath and let it out slowly. "No, what I'm saying is that you need to get a _life_. Preferably one you can actually enjoy living." She made shooing motions at him. "Go on a cruise, go pick up women in bars, go steal things. Whatever. Just go do something that will make you happy, even if it's only a little bit." She put her hands on her hips. "Because if the only way you can make life bearable is by escaping back into Death…" She shrugged.

Her words chilled him to the bone. He looked around the room again, realizing with a sense of dismay that he wasn't even certain how he'd gotten there, or where he'd been before entering the Danger Room.

He could tell from Emma's expression that she was listening in on his thoughts. "Did I… hurt anyone?" he asked, with a tiny ball of dread in his stomach.

She gave him an odd smile. "No, but you and Rogue got into some kind of nasty row yesterday and you've been acting strange ever since."

Remy shook his head, mystified. He didn't remember arguing with Rogue, though he suspected he probably could if he wanted to try. The last thing he remembered clearly was holding Jean while she cried. He had a vague impression of daily events after that--showers and breakfasts and such-- but nothing that had left an indelible mark. He wasn't even sure how many days had passed. Panic stirred in his chest, shortening his breath.

"I have t' get out of here," he said without thinking, but Emma nodded.

"I think it would be good for you." She examined her painted fingernails, making the overhead lights flash off their opalescent surfaces. "However, I am going to put one stipulation on you, providing you're both amenable."

Her tone made Remy immediately suspicious. "Amenable to what?"

The corners of her eyes crinkled. "Taking Jean with you. I think it would be best for a telepath to continue monitoring you, in case something like this happens again." She shrugged. "Besides, Jean could use some time away from here as well."

"Dat's convenient for you, ain't it?" he asked sourly.

She buffed her nails on her sleeve, her smile bright. "Funny how that works. So, how about it?"

He shrugged. "Good luck getting' her t' agree."

Emma's smile didn't waver. "Oh, I can be very convincing."


	9. Chapter 9

"So, yer really leavin'?"

Jean stiffened at the familiar, gravelly voice emanating from her doorway. She laid down the shirt she had just folded on top of the pile already in her suitcase and straightened.

"Yes." She didn't turn around. She didn't want to face him, or the hurt she knew she'd see in his eyes.

"Why?" Logan came into the room, stopping a few steps behind her.

Jean looked down at her open suitcase. "Because, as much as I despise the woman, Emma's right. Remy's going to lose his mind if he stays here."

His fingers touched her shoulder, feather-light and hesitant. A tremor ran through her. "That tells me why Gumbo's leavin', not why yer goin' with him."

Jean forced herself to turn. Logan's hand fell away from her shoulder, and they faced each other across a small space. "I need to go, too," she admitted softly. Her life lay in a shambles about her, like pieces from a puzzle that somehow no longer fit together. This isn't-- this isn't _home_ any more."

Logan met her gaze, his blue eyes full of things she was afraid to name. "It could be," he said.

Jean's breath caught. She understood what he was offering, and the closely guarded hope in his eyes nearly tore her apart. She didn't know how to explain to him that her heart instinctively shrank from him. She loved him-- that much she had admitted to herself long ago. For years, she had loved him, in a little corner of her heart that she'd guiltily hoarded away from her husband. And with the pain of Scott's betrayal weighing so heavily on her, she could hardly bear to look at Logan, because he was her betrayal, and she had been unfaithful from the very beginning.

Tears burned her eyes as she shook her head. "I can't."

The light of hope in his eyes disappeared, hidden once again behind impenetrable shields. For a moment, they simply stared at each other, until Logan broke away with a tiny, pained sound.

"Goodbye, Red." He turned without another word and walked out of the room.

When he was gone, Jean sank onto the edge of the bed and buried her face in her hands. Now, there was truly nothing left in Westchester for her.

#-#-#-#

Jean leaned her head back against the uncomfortable vinyl of the cab's back seat and tried to ignore the smell of stale french fries emanating from it. "Where are we going?"

She studied the stains on the ceiling with abstract interest. It had taken less than forty-eight hours from the time that Emma had first proposed her going with Remy, to her sitting in this cab with the Xavier Institute retreating into the distance behind her. But, the further away they got, the lighter she began to feel, and she found herself smiling as she looked over at her cab mate.

"Remy?"

Remy lounged beside her in stylishly worn jeans and a plain t-shirt that looked like it could have come from the nearest Salvation Army store, though Jean suspected it probably had a designer label on the inside. He wore a Saints ball cap turned backward, covering his half-inch long hair, and he looked out the window with a distant expression.

When Remy didn't answer, she nudged him with her shoulder. "Hey."

He pulled himself back from wherever his thoughts had been and turned to look at her, one eyebrow raised in silent question.

"I asked where we're going."

"De airport." He glanced at her purse, which lay on the seat beside her. "Y' did remember t' bring your passport, chere?"

"Of course." But just to be certain, she grabbed her purse and checked the inside pocket where she knew she'd put it. She located her passport, flipped it open to double check that it was, in fact, her picture on the inside, and then quickly put it away again and tossed her purse back into its original position.

She looked up to find Remy watching her. "Paranoid, much?" he inquired with a hint of a smile.

She huffed playfully. "I'm prudent, not paranoid."

He chuckled. "We're headed t' Africa, chere. Pay Stormy a lil' visit."

"Oh." Jean wasn't sure why she was surprised, but the more she thought about it, the more she liked the idea. "That sounds great." It would be good to see Ororo again, even if it meant enduring all the talk of her new marriage and how wonderful it was. And it would be good for Remy to be with his old friend again. Of all the X-Men, Storm had been the most steadfast in her affection for him.

She tucked an errant lock of hair behind her ear. "Does she know we're coming?"

"Oui, chere. I called her after I chartered de jet." Remy looked back out the window, a faint, dark shadow crossing his face.

Jean let the comment about a chartered jet go. She had always suspected he lived differently away from the X-Men than he did with them. Instead, she concentrated on the fleeting expression she'd seen as he turned away.

"Are you afraid of what she's going to think of you?" she asked gently. "Becoming Death, and all?"

He shrugged. "I don' really know what I'm afraid of." He turned to look at her, his eerie lit with an unsettling glow.

Jean reached over and laid a hand on his arm. "It'll be all right, Remy." The moment the words left her mouth, she realized how much like a platitude they sounded and her lips twisted wryly. "Well, eventually."

She was rewarded by a smile—not one of his blinding ones, but at least genuine. She returned the smile with one of her own.

With a sigh, he slouched down against the cracked vinyl seat and closed his eyes. Jean squeezed his arm lightly and began to withdraw, but he caught her hand, threading his fingers through hers. "T'ank you f' comin' wit' me, Jean." He let their joined hands come to rest on the seat between them.

Oddly touched, Jean didn't try to pull away. Instead, she mirrored his posture in the cramped back seat and closed her eyes with a sigh. "You're welcome," she told him, and felt his fingers tighten around hers.


	10. Chapter 10

The pilot had just announced their turn onto final approach when Remy's spatial sense went crazy. Something screamed upward toward their airplane, corkscrewing through the air as it rose.

"Missile!" he yelled at Jean, who sat on the far side of the plane, watching the African countryside. The word had barely passed his lips when the projectile slammed into the wing on his side of the plane, shattering it in a brilliant ball of fire. The shock wave ripped a hole in the side of the fuselage and tossed Remy across the aisle. He curled up midair and felt Jean's TK grab him before he hit the opposite bulkhead.

The destabilized airplane cartwheeled through the air. Sky and ground flashed by the rent in the side of the airplane like a strobe. Fire streamed from the stump of the destroyed wing, blackening the nearest windows as burning fuel poured across it.

A second missile slammed into the belly of the airplane. The detonation was like a punch, even through Jean's shield, and the remains of their aircraft disintegrated around them in a deafening roar. For a moment, all Remy could see was fire. Then the air cleared. Pieces of aircraft bounced off of the invisible bubble that protected them, spinning away earthward.

Jean hung suspended at the center of the shield, one hand raised, palm outward. He followed the direction of her gaze and saw the nose of the airplane suspended in a second bubble as she acted to save their pilots.

Below them, the dry brown Wakandan countryside stretched away in all directions. In the distance, Remy could make out the outlines of a metropolitan area, most likely the city they had been en route to when someone had so rudely shot their plane out from under them. Directly below him, Remy caught the flash and rattle of small arms fire. His spatial sense tracked their trajectories. Most missed them, but a few ricocheted off the shield. A line of mismatched trucks were lined up along a winding dirt road, and that seemed to be the source of the gunfire.

Remy could only shake his head. Somebody had picked the wrong airplane to shoot down, and as soon as Jean set them on the ground, he intended to give whoever it was a short, painful lesson in the dangers of blindly picking their targets. He slipped a handful of cards from his back pocket, and then retrieved his collapsed bo staff from its place, tucked into the top of his boot, and telescoped it to full length.

They were only a couple hundred feet in the air when the real trouble started. Beside the line of trucks, a circular section of the ground simply collapsed as if sucked down inside a giant funnel, leaving behind a shimmering, multicolored curtain. It hurt Remy's eyes to look at, though he couldn't pinpoint what seemed so wrong about it.

"Don' like the looks o' dat," he muttered.

Jean glanced over. "I'm going to get the pilots out of harm's way." Under her direction, the nose of the airplane began to move away from the line of trucks and the strange circle in the ground.

The interior of the circle heaved outward suddenly, spewing creatures into the air. Remy sucked in his breath in dismay. The circle had seemed _off_, somehow, but these creatures took that sense of wrongness to a whole new dimension. Grotesque and misshapen, they flapped and writhed and flopped as they poured out of the circle. No two were alike. They were universally nasty looking, though, with long claws and teeth, and spines sticking out of their bodies. Many of the dark skins were covered in weeping ulcers which trailed foul-smelling pus.

Those that had wings surged upward toward Remy and Jean while the rest spread out across the ground. Even at a distance, Remy could hear the noise they made, a high pitched chittering that grated on his nerves and made him want to clap his hands to his ears to block it out.

"You ever seen anyt'ing like dem?" Remy asked, but Jean never got the chance to reply. A thick red beam speared upward out of circle in the ground to strike her dead center. She screamed as it enveloped her, then went limp. Her TK field cut out.

Suddenly in freefall, Remy let go of his cards and managed to grab the back of Jean's pants as she collapsed, praying desperately that the denim wouldn't rip. They were falling directly toward a flying beastie the size of a small elephant, which surged up toward them, mouth gaping open. Remy shifted at the last moment, landing neatly on the creature's nose. It squawked, sounding like a giant tea kettle as he used it as a springboard and vaulted away on a new trajectory.

The maneuver had the additional benefit of killing some of their downward speed, but they were still too high up and his grip on Jean was precarious at best.

With a grunt of effort, he pulled Jean toward him and used their relative masses to invert their positions. The move put Remy underneath, with Jean falling into him, and allowed him to release his hold on her waistband in favor of wrapping one arm around her middle in far more secure hold. It also, unfortunately, left them falling head first toward the ground. But that was all right, Remy reasoned, because the air was full of flying critters, and they were about to collide with the one his spatial sense told him was rising beneath them.

They slammed into the creature with enough force to knock the breath from Remy's lungs. Something sharp stabbed him in the arm. He heard something snap, and the creature howled. Leathery wing membranes whipped around Remy's head, battering him. He held onto Jean purely by instinct as he rolled off the creature. They were once again in free fall, but feet first, at least. The beast they'd hit careened away, one wing streaming upward from its body like a collapsed parachute.

Below them, the ground rushed up with frightening speed. Remy estimated they were still a bit more than a hundred feet in the air, but well below terminal velocity. _Jus' a little more luck,_ he prayed silently. That was all he needed to get them down safely.

The next creature to attack them was a little one. No bigger than a cat and incredibly fast, it came at them from behind. Remy barely had time to react. He swung his staff around, slamming it into the creature with as much force as he could manage midair. The miniature demon-looking thing died on impact. It wrapped limply around the end of his staff for a moment before spinning away.

Physics being what it was, Remy and Jean tumbled in the opposite direction. Remy cursed under his breath. Now there weren't any more of the fliers beneath them, only a sea of the non-winged creatures, the trucks, and the inescapable ground. Remy aimed for the thickest area of nightmare creatures. They slithered and crawled across each other in a seething pile that slowly expanded as more clambered out of the circle in the ground. He could only hope it would be enough to break their fall.

They hit the piled bodies in an explosion of lights and pain. Remy took the brunt of the impact on his shoulder and lost his grip on Jean as he tumbled across the mass of bodies. Sharp things poked and sliced at him, and the chittering noise had grown to deafening proportions.

Remy slid off the domed back of a massive beetle-like thing and landed in a crouch on the ground beneath it. He shook his head sharply, trying to clear the stars that danced in his vision. Piled bodies loomed around him, seething and slithering across each other and blocking out the sky. Remy drew a handful of cards from his pocket and charged them. The lurid pink light threw stark shadows against the living walls. Hundreds of eyes turned toward him, bulbous and shiny and utterly alien. Claws scraped and pincers clacked together.

Remy threw his cards in a wide scatter and ducked. The series of explosions tossed bodies and pieces of bodies into the air along with rolling billows of fire. Creatures screamed and surged toward him. He palmed a second set of cards, charged and threw. But then they were on him, too close for cards. He thumbed the release on his staff, allowing the scythe blades at either end to unfold and lock into place.

Remy was a bit uncomfortable with how much he liked the modification Apocalypse had made to his favorite weapon. The bo was a sophisticated weapon-- deadly in the right hands, but also well-suited for non-lethal combat. But with the scythe blades out, it became a weapon made solely to kill. Much like Death himself.

Remy pushed his concern for Jean to the back corner of his mind as the creatures lunged at him from all sides. Each one was different—it moved differently, sensed differently, wore different kinds of natural weapons and armor. Some were laughably easy to cut apart, their forms unsuited for battle, but others were fast and clever and vicious. Remy spun and dodged, his entire being focused on the single moment, and the need to keep the staff moving, always moving. Nothing could touch him inside the space defined by the reach of those flashing blades, so long as he didn't falter. He wished he could call up Death's perfect, systematic fighting style as easily as he could switch to using Death's preferred weapon, but he appeared to be stuck with just Remy LeBeau, who was tiring, in pain, and all together too human.

A short ways away, he saw a pile of the creatures heave as if some massive thing stirred beneath it. Bodies tumbled away as Jean rose from their midst in a crackling sphere of energy. Remy would have cheered if he'd been able to spare the breath. Invisible hands began grabbing the nearest creatures, crushing them beneath a relentless grip before dropping them to the ground.

And still more came, climbing endlessly out of the circle. Exhaustion nipping at his heels, Remy angled toward Jean, wanting to be able to put her shield at his back. A sudden shadow fell across him and Remy looked up in alarm, only to see a mass of thunderclouds scudding across the sky from the east.

"Storm's on her way!" Jean yelled, and a low growl of thunder punctuated her words.

Grinning, Remy threw himself back into the fight with renewed energy. They could hold out until Storm arrived.

Another of the red beams speared out of the center of the hole in the ground. It swept toward Jean and Remy, but passed harmlessly over their heads as if it couldn't manage the angle necessary to reach them near the ground. In the distance, Remy heard the distinctive sound of diesel engines turning over. The trucks, he figured, though he couldn't see any of the vehicles from where he was. No doubt whoever was in them had decided to pull out before the Queen of Wakanda appeared.

No sooner had the sound of engines faded into the distance, then a massive lightning bolt speared down out of the sky to strike the circle in the ground dead center. Remy cried out as the brilliant white light seared his sensitive eyes. The ground shuddered, knocking him to the ground as the force of Storm's bolt shredded the rippling curtain. In response, the phenomenon released its unguessable forces in an explosive column of fire, earth and ash that reached half a mile up into the atmosphere.

Remy curled up on the ground and covered his head as bits of gore and hot dirt rained down on him. The air was full of dust, making him cough. Scattered lightning bolts struck around him, spearing the remaining creatures as they tried to flee.

Once the rain diminished to a light patter, Remy climbed to his feet, wincing, and looked around. Jean stood a short ways away, looking a bit battered but otherwise healthy. She raised a hand in acknowledgement when she noticed his gaze, and he returned the gesture with a tired wave of his own. Now that the fight was over, he began to really feel the pain of his various injuries. None struck him as being immediately serious, but he would need to find some antiseptic and someone who knew how to make decent stitches before too long.

Light as a butterfly, Ororo settled to the ground nearby, her bare feet and brightly patterned sarong seeming out of place in the midst of the carnage that surrounded them.

"My friends, are you well?" she asked, her blue eyes flicking between Remy and Jean, and her brow drawn in an expression of concern.

"We're fine, Ororo." Jean began picking her way through the bodies toward Storm. "You picked a good time to show up."

Ororo nodded, a brief smile appearing on her face. Remy took a couple of steps in her direction, but stopped when Ororo turned back to him. She looked him over critically, and Remy could only guess what she saw. Surely she'd heard about his time as Death and the things he'd done, first for Apocalypse and then Sinister. And now, here he was, bathed in dirt and gore and dripping with his own blood, with Death's scythe in his hand.

"Ro?" he asked when he couldn't stand the silence any longer.

Ororo shook herself into motion. She crossed the remaining distance between them, her cat's eyes never leaving his face, and reached up to lay her palm against his cheek.

"Dear one," she said, her expression shading into puzzlement, "Whatever have you done with your hair?"

Behind her, Jean burst into peals of laughter and after a startled moment, Remy joined in. He swept Ororo up into a tight hug.

"It's good t' see you, too, Stormy," he said into her hair and felt her arms tighten around him.


	11. Chapter 11

A few hours later, Remy sprawled contentedly on a chaise lounge on one of the palace's many sun-drenched balconies, a glass of chilled water perched on his chest. He'd bathed and his various wounds had been cleaned and stitched, leaving him with some lingering aches but that was all. The low table in front of him was filled with platters of native fruits, crusty bread, and something akin to goat cheese but tastier. Across from him, Storm reclined in the arms of her husband, T'challa, King of Wakanda, and a short distance away, Jean sat on a second chaise with her toes tucked up beneath her.

Both ladies, Remy thought, looked remarkably fetching in the native sarongs. Ororo leaned forward to select from the food laid out for them, giving him a very pleasant view of her cleavage. She smiled when she caught him watching her, but behind her T'challa scowled darkly.

Ororo chuckled as she leaned back. "There is no need for that, my husband," she said. "Asking Remy not to admire a beautiful woman is like asking a leopard not to hunt." Her gaze on Remy was full of affection.

Remy grinned back at his friend. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Jean raise her eyebrows archly, a smile tickling the corners of her mouth.

"So, Ororo," Jean turned her attention to the other woman, "it seems like there are some odd things afoot here in Wakanda."

Ororo's expression turned solemn. "Indeed. The creatures you encountered have recently become a plague upon our country."

"Do you know what they are, or where they come from?"

T'challa sat up abruptly, a deep furrow marring his brow. "No," he said, his English richly accented. "We have never been able to get close enough to the point of origin. The creatures are as much an impediment as a danger."

Remy tipped his glass in T'challa's direction. "I saw trucks. Probably whatever was generatin' de portal was in one."

"Perhaps." T'challa rose and walked to the edge of balcony. He rested his hands on the balcony rail and stared out into the distance.

Jean swung her legs off the edge of her chair and straightened. "I sensed the minds of men in the trucks, though I couldn't tell you what they were thinking." She shrugged lightly. "I'm afraid I didn't have the time or the attention to spare to absorb the language they were thinking in."

"They were Ugantu's men." T'challa didn't turn.

Remy gave Ororo a questioning look. "Who's Ugantu?" he asked.

"One of the local warlords." A vertical crease formed between Ororo's brows. "He styles himself a freedom fighter, but he is merely a criminal. He and his followers have always been a source of concern for the government, but he has largely been forced to hide in the rural countryside lest the army hunt him down. But now that he has tapped into whatever power fuels the portals—" She shrugged. "He has grown very bold, and we have, as yet, been unable to do much to stop him."

Something in her tone set off a warning bell in Remy's mind. "Dat don' sound like de Stormy I know, chere. Y' not de kind t' let some ordinary thug get the best of y'."

He saw her stiffen in response. "Perhaps I should back up and explain the political situation in our country, Remy."

Ororo folded her hands in her lap, her blue eyes troubled. "First, you must understand that this is Africa, my friend, and Africa is unlike any other place in the world. Wakanda is a relatively peaceful country that has had a stable monarchy for several centuries. But the crown's influence only extends so far beyond the capital. Out there—" She jerked her chin toward the sweep of dusty countryside visible from the balcony, "the only law that matters is strength. We are inundated with refugees from neighboring countries who are fleeing the wars going on in their homelands. Disease and poverty run rampant. Warlords battle for control of the drug trade, the diamond trade, and they do not care how many innocent lives they waste in the process." She gave him a piercing stare. "We are overwhelmed."

"Sounds like you could use some help," Jean said. She cocked her head as Ororo turned to her. "Why haven't you called the X-Men?"

T'challa turned away from the railing. "I would only appear weak if I was forced to appeal to my wife's foreign friends to settle an internal issue."

Remy snorted at that but didn't contradict him. Ruling a thieves' guild might not be the same as ruling a kingdom, but the politics weren't that different. He wondered briefly if he should have gone to New Orleans instead of Wakanda, but he'd been too afraid of the risk he might pose to his family to want to try to retake his position there. Ororo, at least, had the power to defend herself should she need to.

_Remy?_ Jean's telepathic contact felt like a piece of velvet stroking the inside of his skull.

He shivered involuntarily at the sensation and had to clamp down on the instinct to slap his shields into place. Even though the X-Men knew every important secret he had, he still hated the feeling of someone else's mental fingers inside his brain.

_Sorry._ Jean read his reaction and backed off, her regret wafting toward him like a faint whiff of perfume. _I'll keep it short._

'_Preciate it,_ Remy answered.

Jean went on. _My first instinct is to offer to help—quietly, of course—but we came here so you could spend time with Ororo. I don't want to commit us to something you're not…_ She paused, her mental voice uncertain.

_Sane enough for?_ Remy supplied with only a little bitterness. He'd known what he was signing up for when he agreed to become the X-Men's double agent.

_Ready for,_ Jean countered.

Remy raised his gaze to Ororo's. "Want us t' do a little snoopin' around, chere? See what we can find out?" He kept the question casual. Ororo didn't yet know about his issues with Death and given the situation here he wasn't certain he wanted to burden her with anything more.

_Are you sure?_ Jean asked. Over on the chaise lounge, her green eyes were bright and concerned.

_I wouldn't have asked ot'erwise. Now scram._ He smiled at her to soften the harshness of his tone, but the truth was he didn't want her in his head any longer than necessary. There was a forcible kind of intimacy inherent in telepathic contact that his private nature found repulsive.

He felt her retreat and breathed a silent sigh of relief. She could observe from a distance if it made her feel better. In fact, it made _him_ feel better. Just so long as she kept some clear space between the end of his mind and the beginning of hers.

Ororo's gaze flickered between them, eventually settling on Remy. "Perhaps," she answered his question, her tone as clear as her sky-blue eyes, "but not until you are both rested and well."


	12. Chapter 12

Remy loved exploring. He loved crawling through the bones of old buildings and castles, searching through all the nooks and crannies to find the little spaces that even the architects probably didn't know existed. Even better, he sometimes found hidden treasures long forgotten by the rest of the world tucked away in such spaces—fascinating fragments of lives and times past. Occasionally he found something with real value, and those invariably made their way into some museum or another. And, of course, there were the vaults and treasuries that often inhabited such structures, their owners naively believing that thick walls of stone would be proof against a skilled thief.

The royal palace of Wakanda proved to be more temptation than he could resist. Like a beautiful and exotic woman, the soaring towers of stone and steel called to him, and so, only two days after their arrival in Africa, Remy found himself scaling the sheer walls of what had once been a dumbwaiter shaft in one of the older sections of the palace.

Light trickled down into the shaft from the access hole Remy had discovered on the palace's third floor. The openings in the dumbwaiter shaft had been sealed with brick at some point in the past, but the mason had mixed too much water into his mortar, leaving it weak. It had taken Remy less than ten minutes work with his pocket knife to open a hole large enough for him to crawl through. He'd descended nearly a hundred feet since then and the light had grown dim, but there still remained enough for him to make out the four-foot wide cedar columns that supported the corners of the vertical shaft. Un-mortared, hand-carved stones formed the walls, their edges so exact he had to work to find good finger and toe holds.

Remy had done a little online research about the Wakandan royal palace since he'd arrived. There were two known vaults buried somewhere inside the stone foundations, with up to three more rumored to exist. T'challa's ancestors were believed to have squirreled away everything from raw diamonds to Egyptian artifacts to Spanish bullion.

Remy was curious if the rumors were true. He grinned to himself. Emma had told him to go do something fun and the truth was, he hadn't had this much fun in a very long time.

He ran his fingers along the crease between two blocks of stone, searching for a new hand hold and then carefully lowered himself another notch into the unknown depths of the palace.

#-#-#-#

Nearly eight hours later, Remy swung open the door to one of the palace vaults and stepped inside. He estimated the door to be at least two centuries old. It was made of eighteen inch thick riveted steel plates with retractable teeth that extended into holes cut in the stone floor. The lock looked to be as old as the door. It took Remy exactly twenty-three seconds to pick it, and that was only because the blade of his pocket knife really wasn't an ideal tool for the job.

The first thing he noticed as he entered was the relatively sophisticated video camera mounted in one corner of the room. He waved jauntily to the guards he assumed were on the other end of the monitoring system and proceeded to examine the vault's dusty contents. Statues and other artifacts sat in haphazard piles around the edges of the room, along with unlabeled crates of various styles and levels of antiquity. Several framed paintings leaned against one wall, their faces covered by tarps.

He was carefully blowing dust from the designs on an engraved bowl that looked to be made of pure gold when soldiers poured into the vault. The uniformed men surrounded him, the muzzles of their automatic rifles trained unerringly on his kneeling form.

"Raise your hands, thief!" one man barked in thickly-accented English.

Obediently, Remy held up his hands just as the King of Wakanda stormed into the vault.

"Is this how you repay my hospitality, X-Man?" T'challa demanded angrily. "And worse, the friendship of my queen?"

Remy straightened from his crouch, making sure his motions remained slow and unthreatening. He doubted the king understood any part of his friendship with Ororo.

A smile tickling the corners of his mouth, he inclined his head respectfully toward T'challa. "Y' highness." He met the other man's gaze. "No offense, but y' security sucks."

T'challa flushed with fury, visible even with his dark skin. He turned to his soldiers. "Handcuff him and put him in a holding cell until I can arrange to speak with the American ambassador."

"Yes, sir," the man who'd spoken before answered.

With a last look at Remy, T'challa turned and strode away. Remy offered no resistance as the soldiers secured a pair of handcuffs on his wrists and led him out of the vault.


	13. Chapter 13

Jean woke to the sounds of an argument. The voices floated toward her from beyond the door of her suite, and she was deeply surprised to realize one of the voices belonged to Ororo.

Rising, she went to the door and cracked it open. Ororo and T'challa stood in the shady, brick-lined courtyard outside, their stances tense.

"And I am telling you that Remy would never steal from us." Ororo's diaphanous skirt billowed in a sudden breeze that swept through the courtyard, bringing with it the scents of sun-warmed stone and gardenias.

Curious and a little alarmed, Jean opened the door a bit further.

T'challa gestured angrily. "I caught him red-handed in the vault, my wife. Why do you keep defending him? Who is this man to you?"

Jean winced at the accusation in his tone but it didn't surprise her. The depth of the relationship between Ororo and Remy had been a source of friction and jealousy for nearly every significant other in their lives. Telepath that she was, Jean knew for a certainty that it had never been a physical relationship, but she'd never probed either of them for the reason. Though she was curious, that wasn't reason enough to go snooping in someone's mind.

Ororo tossed her head, her expression arch. "You did not _catch_ him. Remy was not trying to escape."

Jean hurriedly opened the door and stepped out. Ororo was only making things worse.

Both T'challa and Ororo turned in surprise at her sudden entrance, and Jean unconsciously squared her shoulders. "What's going on?" she asked Ororo.

"Your companion tried to rob me." T'challa glared at Jean.

Ororo crossed her arms over her breasts. "He did no such thing," she retorted.

_You're not helping matters,_ Jean told Ororo privately and saw the other woman's expression flicker. Ororo glanced uncertainly at her husband and the angry set of her shoulders relaxed a fraction.

_Now, where is Remy?_ Jean asked the other woman. _Is he all right?_ She didn't want to exacerbate the situation by intruding in the minds of any of T'challa's people in search of him. Chances were good they would never know, but she didn't want to take the chance.

_Remy is well,_ Ororo replied, her mind projecting affection beneath her anger and faint, mischievous humor.

Ororo turned to her husband. "T'challa, my love, listen to me. I know Remy broke into the vault but I promise you he meant no harm."

"He meant to rob my country!" T'challa's angry stare shifted to his wife. "We don't have enough troubles without adding this as well?"

Jean shook her head as she followed the trails of affection in Ororo's mind. "King T'challa, the truth is that if Remy had intended to steal from you, you would never have caught him. You probably wouldn't even have known until long after we were gone."

Beside the king, Ororo raised an eyebrow as if surprised Jean would endorse Remy's thieving abilities. Jean answered with a miniscule shrug. She couldn't say she approved, but the evidence, though sporadic, was more than enough to convince her of his skill, even if Scott had never been willing to see it.

Jean went on. "I know it sounds strange, but I assure you this was nothing more than Remy's admittedly odd notion of amusing himself." She projected her sincerity at a level obvious enough for T'challa to identify.

The king's brows drew together in a deep notch, but the razor edge of his anger lost some of its sheen.

Jean turned her head to look toward the far corner of the courtyard, where the shadows gathered beneath the fronds of some large, tropical-looking plant. "I think it's safe to come out now," she called in that direction and saw an answering flash of red in the shadows.

Remy ducked out from beneath the broad leaves and sauntered toward them, his hands shoved into the front pockets of his jeans. His mind was far warier than his body language betrayed, though. Jean barely had to open up her mind to him to feel how carefully he watched his surroundings.

T'challa pivoted sharply, his anger shrilling across Jean's senses and she blocked his thoughts with an internal wince. T'challa's mind felt like a cheese grater against hers. On the opposite side, Remy's thoughts slid across her mind with the smooth bite of aged whiskey. She let the silky texture brush her mind just for a moment before pulling back. Scott had always been vaguely scandalized that she preferred hard liquor to something more ladylike.

"How did you get out?" T'challa demanded, his gaze shifting from Ororo to Remy and then back to his wife. "Did you do this?" Hurt edged his tone.

Ororo raised her chin. "I did not." The couple stared at each other for a long moment before Ororo broke away and turned to Remy. "You have caused a great deal of trouble," she scolded him.

Remy didn't look particularly chastened. He shrugged innocently. "I was jus' lookin' around."

An amused smile lit Ororo's features. "And you just _happened_ to find one of the royal vaults, did you?"

His slow, smoky grin appeared like magic. "Mais, dis one wasn' on any known plans, so yeah."

T'challa's expression darkened as they talked. "I will only ask you once more," he ground out, pinning Remy with a glare. "_How_ did you escape?"

Remy's smile fell away. He inclined his head toward T'challa, the gesture serious and surprisingly respectful. "Y' Highness, when I said y' security sucks, it was a professional assessment not an insult." He met the king's gaze evenly. "De only reason Wakanda still has a royal treasure is because nobody's bothered t' hire professionals to take it away from y'."

Both of T'challa's eyebrows arched sharply. His mind oozed a combination of surprise and outrage, but beneath those his thoughts acknowledged the truth in what Remy said.

Before T'challa could decide what to say, however, a clatter of approaching footsteps filled the courtyard.

"Dat probably be y' security chief," Remy said with a glance at his watch. "By now he's decided they not gon' find me an' he's comin' t' fess up."

Jean turned to look as a trio of armed men hustled into the courtyard. She recognized the man in the lead. He'd come into the room where the king's physician had attended to their wounds, observing from the corner with dark, suspicious eyes. Now he slid to a stop, his eyes widening and his hand going to the gun holstered at his hip, but T'challa waved him down.

"Your Highness, this man--!"

"Escaped," T'challa finished dryly. "I know." He glanced at Ororo. "Apparently my wife finds it amusing to bring a professional thief into my house."

Ororo looked away, her brows drawn into a frown. Remy watched her for a moment, his face expressionless, then turned to the king. "'Ro knows everyt'ing she has is safe wit' me. Family is family."

At his words, Ororo looked up with a smile and T'challa scowled. Remy seemed to recognize the growing schism his presence was causing. His solemnity disappeared behind a grin. "But, hey, maybe I c'n make it up to y'."

When T'challa turned to look at him, he pulled his hands from his pockets and spread them. "Let Jean an' me take a quiet look at dis Ugantu an' his weird bugs."


End file.
